“Work is progressing well to restore the damaged track along Wellington’s foreshore. All track is now in place and a tamper machine has been in operation through the night to level the track. Restoration of signalling and traction will need to take place before services can resume and this will be the focus for the KiwiRail teams today,” says KiwiRail’s Chief Executive Jim Quinn.

“While support from the public has been superb under trying circumstances, we know the disruption to those travelling from the Wairarapa and Hutt Valley over the last few days has been significant. Our focus is to get our services up and running again as quickly as we can to minimise any further disruption and inconvenience.

“A test train is scheduled to run through the repaired site at 10pm tonight, and we expect to have the ability to run Thursday morning’s Hutt Valley and Wairarapa services as normal.”

There may be a speed restriction of 40km/h in place through the worksite heading into Wellington when the track is re-opened. This will add some minutes to the journey into Wellington. KiwiRail expects to be able to remove this restriction once the track has settled with train activity over a few days.

“I would also like to acknowledge the incredible efforts of the repair and recovery crews who have worked around the clock with absolute dedication to ensure we can get services back up and running as soon as possible,” says Mr Quinn.

Tranz Metro will be regularly updating passengers with regard to peak services. While we expect to be able to operate trains as per normal through Petone, if there are any changes to the plan following the test train run, we will communicate this with passengers via text and on the website.

We also have bus services on standby if there are any changes to this plan.